A Blue View

Does 'Moochers Against Welfare' Explain It?

At the end of the  mind blowingly counterintuitive post The More Dependent on the Government You Are, the More You Want to Cut It! I asked,

Anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on?

Though I doubt Paul Krugman reads A Blue View, he did try to answer my question in his column today, Moochers Against Welfare

But why do regions that rely on the safety net elect politicians who want to tear it down? I’ve seen three main explanations.

First, there is Thomas Frank’s thesis in his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”: working-class Americans are induced to vote against their own interests by the G.O.P.’s exploitation of social issues. And it’s true that, for example, Americans who regularly attend church are much more likely to vote Republican, at any given level of income, than those who don’t.

Still, as Columbia University’s Andrew Gelman points out, the really striking red-blue voting divide is among the affluent: High-income residents of red states are overwhelmingly Republican; high-income residents of blue states only mildly more Republican than their poorer neighbors. Like Mr. Frank, Mr. Gelman invokes social issues, but in the opposite direction. Affluent voters in the Northeast tend to be social liberals who would benefit from tax cuts but are repelled by things like the G.O.P.’s war on contraception.

Finally, Cornell University’s Suzanne Mettler points out that many beneficiaries of government programs seem confused about their own place in the system. She tells us that 44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving unemployment benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say that they “have not used a government program.”

Presumably, then, voters imagine that pledges to slash government spending mean cutting programs for the idle poor, not things they themselves count on. And this is a confusion politicians deliberately encourage. For example, when Mr. Romney responded to the new Obama budget, he condemned Mr. Obama for not taking on entitlement spending — and, in the very next breath, attacked him for cutting Medicare.

What do you think?  Does he explain it? (And don't forget to check the comments on the original post.)

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/krugman-moochers-against-welfare.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

The More Dependent on the Government You Are, the More You Want to Cut It!

If you haven't read this excellent NY Times story, Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It, yet you should. One section of it, however, just blew me away:

One of the oldest criticisms of democracy is that the people will inevitably drain the treasury by demanding more spending than taxes. The theory is that citizens who get more than they pay for will vote for politicians who promise to increase spending.

But Dean P. Lacy, a professor of political science at Dartmouth College, has identified a twist on that theme in American politics over the last generation. Support for Republican candidates, who generally promise to cut government spending, has increased since 1980 in states where the federal government spends more than it collects. The greater the dependence, the greater the support for Republican candidates.

Conversely, states that pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits tend to support Democratic candidates. And Professor Lacy found that the pattern could not be explained by demographics or social issues.

This was so mind blowingly counterintuitive, I wrote to the reporter who provided the reference so I (and you) could delve deeper.

Anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on?